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“That could have been him.” He gave a soft cough. “Were the girls there by chance?”

I was fully aware that my annoyance was showing now. Alric most likely had been the one responsible for them passing out at my feet. They would have followed him there, which was why Foxy said they were there but I hadn’t seen them. Alric needed them out of the way for something, and spelled them. Once I found him again, he was going to have a lot to answer for.

“Yes, they were, and I think your friend did something to them. They crashed into me and passed out.” At Harlan’s arched eyebrow, I shook my head. “No, they weren’t just drunk. What do you know about this guy?”

“Just what I told you. He’s up to no good, and has been snooping around trash bins up on The Hill for the past week.” He waggled a stumpy finger at me. “That can’t be good—normal people don’t do that.”

I refrained from pointing out that Harlan himself had been doing it for far longer than a week.

“Have you seen him today?” Maybe if he had, I’d get a clearer idea of where Alric was hiding.

“Actually, that is quite curious. He didn’t appear at any of the haunts today. He could have been trash picking off The Hill, but I have a feeling he is connected to whatever they are really up to.”

Damn. So maybe something did happen to Alric after the pub. I pushed down the feeling of concern that slammed into me. He had shown time and again that he could handle himself. But I’d been surprised he hadn’t broken into my house, especially since he broke his cover to speak to me in the Shimmering Dewdrop. I shook those thoughts out of my head.

“Enough of him for now. Why did the girls set that tree on fire?”

Harlan pulled back and wrinkled his whiskers at me. “I assure you, I did not encourage, or even suggest, that they create mayhem. Besides, I’m not sure how it happened but I don’t think they could have done it. The flames were contained almost the moment they’d started.” He got up and resumed pacing—never a good sign.

“That small grove had been our meeting spot and they’d arrived before me. But within seconds of us seeing each other the tree burst into flame. The girls rushed forward to see if they could put it out, but I stayed back once I saw the magic shield around it.”

I knew the girls wouldn’t have been rushing forward to put out the fire, most likely they just wanted to get a better view. I fingered the magic lock and remaining chest pieces in my pocket. Normally, I’d go to Harlan with something like this. Usually after Covey, but she was still out of the picture. Her hiding in a cave-like room and talking to no one wasn’t going to help me with this thing.

But I wasn’t sure just how far around the bend Harlan was on this case. It might be best not to give him any new mysteries until he climbed down off the ledge on this one. I would just see what I could figure out first, then go to my “experts” once I got stumped.

I was just getting up to say good night when the stairs outside the apartment rattled as if an army ran up them. Then said army bashed the door off its hinges.

Chapter Seven

I don’t know who was more surprised. Me, that the army was actually just Covey, or her, seeing me standing in Harlan’s secret hidey hole.

I was going to bet it was me. After all, I was looking at my best friend, who had spent the better part of the last three months living like a cloistered nun. And she was not only out and about, but was out and fully dressed, appeared to be fully functioning, and was holding a large cudgel.

She quickly looked back and forth between Harlan and me, but didn’t lower her weapon. Maybe Harlan wasn’t the only one who was going around the bend. Covey hadn’t been crazy that I knew of, just afraid she was turning into a violent throw-back to her ancient reptilian ancestors.

Was that a crazed homicidal gleam in her eye?

“Taryn? What are you doing here?” She cocked her head and turned toward Harlan.

“And why didn’t you send the code? I came when I thought you’d been found out.” She didn’t drop the large bulky stick, but she lowered it a bit.

“Can we just figure out how to fix Harlan’s door and then sit down and sort this out like normal people?” I folded my arms carefully so as to not jostle the tracings of the gold pieces. I’d shoved them in my inner coat pocket when the door busted in. I figured it might be better not to remind Harlan I had them.

Harlan shook his head and marched over to the door. He still hadn’t said anything, and didn’t while he managed to get the door more or less back in place. But I had a feeling that if fur-covered faces could blush, his would.

As it should. I knew he’d been AWOL the last month, but how long had he and Covey been associating? He pretended to leave town and she pretended to go into solitary? The more I thought about it the madder I got.

There was enough tension in the air that even Crusty Bucket would have noticed and she didn’t even notice half the things she physically slammed into.

“Who wants to talk first? Which of you wants to explain their lies?” I leaned against the desk and shifted my glare equally from one to the other. Covey had finally let her stick hang by her side, but neither of them was sitting yet.

“I wasn’t lying, Taryn.” Covey hung her head. Embarrassment was something I’d never seen on her before. “I did fear I’d become a throw-back when I still felt like attacking things after the battle. But a month ago Harlan sent me some scrolls showing what would have had to happen to me physically for that change to have happened. He also showed me his research from up on The Hill.”

“And you didn’t tell me. Why?” I’d visited her at least three times this month. She had stayed completely silent each time.

“That was partially my fault,” Harlan said. He walked over and flopped down on his sofa, but wouldn’t meet my eye. “I didn’t know how well you’d recovered from the battle.” He winced. “That whole incident about Alric and a second gargoyle, I just felt it might be best to let you sort things out first. We could handle this mystery and leave you to a calm life of digging.”

I slid back so I could actually sit on the desk and hung my head. In trying to protect me, these two had gotten into gods and goddesses knew what. And dragged my faeries in on it.

“How did you think I wouldn’t get involved if you brought the girls in?” I waved my hand. This was getting too complicated, and the evening was too late. “You know what? I don’t want to know right now. About anything. You said the girls weren’t behind that fire?”

“They weren’t, I swear. They’d been chasing down the last places that miscreant I was following had been. That fire started without their help. I know—”

“Nope.” I cut him off and jumped off the desk. I was pretty sure that the faeries had been trailing Alric, but I’d wager even they didn’t know who they’d actually been following—his stench had been so bad, I doubted even their sensitive noses could have known who it was. Which may have been his reason for smelling so bad. “Nothing more right now. I will tell you both that I appear to be the sanest one of the three of us and right now I really don’t want to know what you’re up to. Just keep the faeries out of trouble, and don’t call for me if you get arrested.” My stalking to the door was robbed of its dramatic impact since I had to be careful about how I handled the partially busted door, but I think I made my point.

The door didn’t open after me, but I did hear a furious low-level argument. Let them argue. They were my best friends, but neither had ever been very close to each other previously. It was charming to know that my supposed mental infirmity had led to their crazed bonding.

Unfortunately, I had spent so much time with Harlan and Covey that there were three very annoyed faeries waiting for me when I got home. Okay, two annoyed faeries—I didn’t think anything could dampen Crusty Bucket’s spirits.

I ignored Garbage Blossom’s sulking and opened the door. All three zipped in only to pull up short leaving me walking into hovering faery wings.

“What in the…GLOW!” I yelled for the lights only to see what had stopped the girls in mid-air. A very battered and bloody Alric, still in partial drunk old man outfit, was sound asleep on my new sofa.

If I could get money to follow me around as much as the idiot seeping nasty-who-knows-what into my nice sofa, I’d be a rich woman. I hadn’t really even broken in that sofa in yet. My last one had to be destroyed after one of Alric’s spells caused my date, Marcos, to turn into the three jinn brothers. I still shuddered at how close I’d gotten to sleeping with them.

I’d pretty much convinced myself that I didn’t care what Alric did or where he was, and here he was leaking bodily fluids on my furniture. Like I could really drag him out into the night and leave him there in his condition.

I shut the door and went to the kitchen to get some rags or towels of some sort. He looked pretty beaten up, a condition not unknown to him since I wasn’t the only one he pissed off regularly.

Coming back, I shooed away the girls who were hovering over him. I was surprised Garbage Blossom hadn’t taken a swing yet, but I think she was looking for a clean spot to hit.

Thank goodness the lank and greasy hair and beard he’d had in the pub were gone, or mostly gone. Pieces of the beard still clung to the glue he’d used to get it to stick. More importantly all the bugs were gone. That would have been a deal breaker. I’d find a way to dump him outside my house so fast the faeries would be impressed.

His clothes were torn and wherever there was flesh, there were bruises. Very little blood though; one shallow slice such as might come from a sword or dagger on his ribs, and some on his knuckles that I figured wasn’t his at all.

I’d seen him fight and—with or without weapons—the slippery bastard could hold his own. Which meant he had probably been ambushed by a gang.

Wiping away some grime revealed his usual handsome and annoying face, but no answers as to where he’d been for the past day. If they’d grabbed him, whoever they were, right after the pub, he should have shown up here last night.

The faeries watched him for a few moments. Garbage Blossom still looking like she wanted to pummel him, but they were quickly getting bored. Those three had the attention spans of mentally deranged kittens. Unless something moved, they lost interest quickly.

Should I try to wake him? Part of me wanted to, just to be able to unload all the anger and hurt I’d been carrying around the last few months. Yell at him for a few hours in his current weakened state. But the other part, the damningly rational side, reminded me that I needed to get up early in the morning and that if he did wake up, I’d be up even later than I already was.

“Can I trust you three to keep an eye on him while I sleep?” I did my best stern stare at the faeries who by now were all wandering around their tiny doll castle. They didn’t really need much sleep, but I think they just liked having a building their size with their own little rooms and beds in them. “Just make sure he doesn’t damage himself and that no one gets in.” As I said that I went and triple-checked all the locks. Worse than having him break in would be someone else breaking in to get to him.

The girls nodded slowly and I noticed Garbage Blossom was fingering her war stick. “You can’t hurt him either.” I thought about it. Alric was a freakishly quick healer. “Unless he gets up and starts trying to take things.” Garbage Blossom perked up at that.

I’d be sleeping with the rubbings of Harlan’s sarcophagus pieces under my pillow, thank you. But it was better to have the faeries keep a watch against him as well as for him.

After yet one more check of all the door and window locks, and of course finding no evidence of how Alric got in, I headed for my bedroom. And tripped over the pile of laundry sitting right inside the door to remind me to take it in after work. Which I forgot, again. I re-piled the clothes, patted them, and promised I’d get them in to the laundry after work tomorrow. To be honest, if I didn’t get them in soon I was going to have nothing outside of my one fancy dress to wear to work. Granted, Qianru might actually think that wasn’t a bad idea; she was eccentric enough to appreciate it. But I certainly wouldn’t.

I decided the rubbings from Harlan’s finds would be coming with me to work in the morning. I probably would have done that anyway, but with Alric in my living room, I really needed to keep an eye on them. I wasn’t sure if Harlan would let me copy them again and I didn’t want to deal with him or Covey at the moment.

The markings were similar to elvish in some parts but mostly very different. That Harlan thought they were just another clan of elves was reaching on his part, but making evidence fit a favorite hypothesis wasn’t new for anyone. They were different enough that they were most likely from the Ancients.

Even if I didn’t recognize the original pieces as part of a sarcophagus, I would have been tipped off by the imagery. I couldn’t decipher the words or even the symbols, but it was clearly a funeral scene.

The being that had been buried must have been huge. During my brief and terrifying run-in with this sarcophagus—or one exactly like it—I had thought the size had been due to ritual burial items. A single, albeit important body, along with all of their worldly possessions. Or, it could have been an entire family. Unusual, but not unheard of.

But looking closer at the markings it appeared that it was a single, huge being. But the rubbing cut off before I could get a good look at what the creature was. I unfolded the other rubbings in hopes of finding more, but the pieces weren’t from the same section.

I stared at the papers for a good ten minutes, hoping whatever that weird sense of familiarity I’d had in Harlan’s hovel would come back and bring answers.

But I got nothing.

With a sigh, I folded up the papers and tucked them under my pillow. Being paranoid, I stepped back into the living room to check on my unwanted house guest one last time. I’d left one glow on dim, just in case he got up, or if I felt the need to check on him. But as far as I could tell he hadn’t moved. Garbage Blossom was watching from the pointed roof of their doll castle, but didn’t acknowledge my presence. I almost felt sorry for Alric if he woke up and she determined he was trying to take something.

Faeries can be very capricious when it’s called for, and “taking something” could be as simple as a glass of water. I thought about moderating her orders, then shook my head and went back to bed. Alric deserved what he got. I’d make sure to remind him of that in the morning.

***

My sleep was better than the night before, just due to being in a bed and not a chair. But my dreams were fierce and annoying. All I could recall were bits and pieces that made no sense, but I’d awoken numerous times almost screaming in terror. Or anger. The two were so interwoven I couldn’t tell which emotion was actually being evoked. And the more I tried to grab onto the images and feelings upon waking up, the faster they vanished.

I rarely dreamed. I also usually had at least one ale in the evening, but hadn’t last night. From now on, an ale every night would be my motto. There was no way I wanted to go through that again.

With a shudder, I threw on my robe and went to go check on the sleeping lunatic on my sofa.

Only to find him gone. I wasn’t really that surprised. Alric existed to annoy me, and vanishing without telling me what was going on was his primary way of doing that. What did surprise me was that he may not have gone of his own accord.

The blanket I’d draped over him was strung out across the floor half-way to the door. The door looked shut, but then I noticed not only wasn’t it locked, all three locks had been busted. Like mini-explosions opened all three. Or like a very skilled and powerful spell user broke in.

Crap.

I checked on the faeries, but all three were sound asleep. Garbage Blossom was even asleep on top of their castle, her war stick still clutched in her tiny hand. Now that was more surprising than Alric being missing. Those three didn’t sleep through anything unless they were drunk and rare was the day I woke up before them.

Which meant that, like the busted locks and the very silent kidnapping of Alric, the girls’ current condition was due to a spell.

I looked out the door again to see how I could brace it shut until tomorrow when I could get a locksmith out here. And started swearing anew.

The sun wasn’t up yet but it was seriously considering it—which meant I was dangerously close to being late for Qianru.